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Well I obviously applied for their broadband service back in November but if I knew then what I know now I would definitely have paid a couple of quid more to get the next provider because I've never had such a bad experience with any company for any kind of utility.

So after a couple of orders that got lost "for technical reasons" I finally got my go live data on Dec 28. Not sure why it was called "go live" since that was the date my internet stopped (with my previous provider).

After talking to Vodafone using their online service and via the phone I haven't counted but I have definitely spoken to more than 20 people.

Unless anyone is interested in the detail, I shall spare folk every customer service twist and turn but one big problem I faced was that often I would speak or online chat to someone and be told something different to the previous representative. It made/makes it very hard to find out what the actual issue is and when it would be resolved. They also at one stage encouraged me to apply for a new pay monthly sim so they could credit 50GB free on it and then refund the payments. That turned into its own mini-nightmare.

I wrote this originally in the hope that I might have a technical or consumer view on what has happened to my broadband and what I should do but really after being treated as I have I'm sorry I had to vent some steam a little.

So if anyone has been kind enough to read this far I would be grateful for a view on the technical if anyone knows? I previously had a working VDSL FTTC line with plusnet and wanted the same thing with Vodafone. I assumed it would be a straight swap.

On the go live date I still didn't have their router and was told there was yet another fkup and it would be with me within a week. In the meantime I was given the VDSL credentials and programmed two vdsl routers I already had and even tried directly from windows and a mac via the openreach modem I already had. Despite checking very carefully indeed that they were entered properly, logged error was chaps invalid credentials.

The next day an official Vodafone router showed up (despite being told it would be a week away). Great news I thought! Just plug it in and go. Well, unfortunately, it wouldn't work either. The status lights looked like it was trying to connect every few minutes then failing. Firstly the customer service told me it was a "provisioning issue". So I went with that and did what they said but still no joy after several more hours messing around.

Then a UK rep on the phone told me he could see notes left by the OpenReach engineer that the line change didn't complete and that "they would update again on Jan 9" (!!). Why didn't he tell me that before? And why didn't the next rep I spoke to even mention that was the issue?

So the main question I have is why couldn't the BT OpenReach engineer complete the transfer? Surely its not going to be hours of work for each customer? I'm assuming its largely a case of moving a patch cable from one port to another?
Also, I'm paying a fair amount now with my existing mobile phone provider for data. I guess I've no hope getting Vodafone to do better than encourage me to sign up with one of their mobile plans?
/And breath...... 8-)

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Kind regards,

Lee

Vodafone Social Media

“Official Company Representative
I am the official company representative of Vodafone. MSE has given permission for me to post in response to queries about the company, so that I can help solve issues. You can see my name on the companies with permission to post list. I am not allowed to tout for business at all. If you believe I am please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.comThis does NOT imply any form of approval of my company or its products by MSE"

Well I obviously applied for their broadband service back in November but if I knew then what I know now I would definitely have paid a couple of quid more to get the next provider because I've never had such a bad experience with any company for any kind of utility.

So after a couple of orders that got lost "for technical reasons" I finally got my go live data on Dec 28. Not sure why it was called "go live" since that was the date my internet stopped (with my previous provider).

After talking to Vodafone using their online service and via the phone I haven't counted but I have definitely spoken to more than 20 people.

Unless anyone is interested in the detail, I shall spare folk every customer service twist and turn but one big problem I faced was that often I would speak or online chat to someone and be told something different to the previous representative. It made/makes it very hard to find out what the actual issue is and when it would be resolved. They also at one stage encouraged me to apply for a new pay monthly sim so they could credit 50GB free on it and then refund the payments. That turned into its own mini-nightmare.

I wrote this originally in the hope that I might have a technical or consumer view on what has happened to my broadband and what I should do but really after being treated as I have I'm sorry I had to vent some steam a little.

So if anyone has been kind enough to read this far I would be grateful for a view on the technical if anyone knows? I previously had a working VDSL FTTC line with plusnet and wanted the same thing with Vodafone. I assumed it would be a straight swap.

On the go live date I still didn't have their router and was told there was yet another fkup and it would be with me within a week. In the meantime I was given the VDSL credentials and programmed two vdsl routers I already had and even tried directly from windows and a mac via the openreach modem I already had. Despite checking very carefully indeed that they were entered properly, logged error was chaps invalid credentials.

The next day an official Vodafone router showed up (despite being told it would be a week away). Great news I thought! Just plug it in and go. Well, unfortunately, it wouldn't work either. The status lights looked like it was trying to connect every few minutes then failing. Firstly the customer service told me it was a "provisioning issue". So I went with that and did what they said but still no joy after several more hours messing around.

Then a UK rep on the phone told me he could see notes left by the OpenReach engineer that the line change didn't complete and that "they would update again on Jan 9" (!!). Why didn't he tell me that before? And why didn't the next rep I spoke to even mention that was the issue?

So the main question I have is why couldn't the BT OpenReach engineer complete the transfer? Surely its not going to be hours of work for each customer? I'm assuming its largely a case of moving a patch cable from one port to another?
Also, I'm paying a fair amount now with my existing mobile phone provider for data. I guess I've no hope getting Vodafone to do better than encourage me to sign up with one of their mobile plans?
/And breath...... 8-)

We are in exactly the same position as you. We were meant to go live on 2nd Jan but after numerous conversations with different people at vodafone (the last one being wed 10th Jan) they said it would be another 5 working days maximum. We wished we had never moved from our previous supplier Plusnet. Our advice IS AVOID VODAFONE at all costs. We have now been without any internet access since 2nd January (10days) and if he goes live on 16th Jan this will be 14 days. TOTAL SHAMBLES. Prior to this we had already signed up to them 3 weeks earlier.

Thanks for all the emails of support and explanation. Matty17r, thanks also for your PM - just replied.

To Vodafone's SM team I created a new ticket number 17812758.

So just to update here, I waited on the 9th until about 6pm with no signs of the router springing into life. I tried rebooting it a couple of times too.

I called Vodafone up and was told that BtOpenreach had informed Vodafone that they needed to send through another order. There was no date when it would be actioned but the Vodafone person I spoke to told me off the record she estimated it would probably be about 2 weeks. If she keeps her promise I might get an update tomorrow.

I have every reason to believe that she was the only person who had actually got through to Openreach. I'd had other agents tell me "....it tells me I'm like...151 in the queue....we really can't wait that long....but don't worry it will get sorted....". So I suspect they could have re-ordered this long ago.

I'm obviously not at all happy. Even though I'm a software engineer for a large IT company, I didn't realise just how many things we use relied on a working broadband connection and how many family members would start complaining to me on a daily basis! Its even affected TV viewing and the central heating !

No response from the Vodafone social media team. I clicked their link, filled out the details and no response. Actually that's the second and the second time I had no response. The first occasion was when I complained on their own forums.

I phoned up on Saturday, and spoke to a pleasant chap who couldn't help and kept me on the phone for more than an hour (!). In essence, the news was that there was no news from BTOpenreach.

Meanwhile, I'm being very careful with our internet use which we're getting via a £20 9GB Giffgaff sim. Vodafone have not offered anything else except signing up for a contract which:
a/ Is something I'd rather not do
b/ Is something I can't do because their own rules prevent customers signing up for new contracts within 90 days of taking out and existing one.

Should I try to claim any compensation? And how much? I suspect anything they pay me is not going to be noticeable compared to the stress this last few weeks without a good internet connection has caused, but nevertheless something is better than nothing I suppose.

If that's the case, why are you looking at the "cheap and nasty" end of the market for your ISP? Use a decent one with staff that will take ownership of a problem and get action from BT wholesale and/or Openreach.

I've just checked your email reference number and can see that one of my colleagues replied on 15 January. Please accept my apologies for the delay with us getting back to you.

If you need any further help, let us know.

matty17r, I'm sorry to hear that your experience hasn't been good so far.

If you still some help, email us via the contact details provided in post 6 above.

Kind regards,

Lee

Vodafone Social Media

Last edited by Vodafone; 17-01-2018 at 1:22 PM.

“Official Company Representative
I am the official company representative of Vodafone. MSE has given permission for me to post in response to queries about the company, so that I can help solve issues. You can see my name on the companies with permission to post list. I am not allowed to tout for business at all. If you believe I am please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.comThis does NOT imply any form of approval of my company or its products by MSE"

I've finally been connected (service lost on Dec 28) but still have no clue as to what happened. Did the openreach engineer make a mistake and connect me into the wrong port at the cabinet or the exchange? I just don't know.

I don't understand the "I should know better" comment though. I know very little about the marketplace but do understand that a bit is a bit, a byte is a byte so why not get the best value provider? Would I have been better off with another ISP? They all rely on BTOpenreach so I'm not so sure.

One thing I do know, is that if I made a mistake at work, I would feel like rectifying it as soon as possible and definitely by the next day. I couldn't imagine making a customer wait for weeks due to my error (well, I'd be sacked if I did).

Anyway, I in the end I bought an "unlimited" (i.e. 9GB) 3g/4g/ data allowance from Giffgaff for £20, a 30GB hotspot from Three for £25, a mifi device from Ebay for £30 and an Areal for £10 from Amazon. With that lot setup internet wasn't too bad but the 30GB per month meant no video. According to https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/broadband/2017/11/most-broadband-and-landline-users-to-get-automatic-compensation-from-2019 I would in the future get £5 per day compensation which would pay for those costs but definitely not anywhere close for the inconvenience. However, it seems that even though most of the big players have joined the scheme Vodafone has not (so maybe it is "cheap and nasty" ?). We shall see what they offer.... (presumably nothing unless I ask)

I had no end of problems with Vodafone, left one year ago and will never go back. Email the CEO, here, let him feel some of your pain. Tell him the complaint and order references you have and let him make the relevant enquiries

I don't understand the "I should know better" comment though. I know very little about the marketplace but do understand that a bit is a bit, a byte is a byte so why not get the best value provider? Would I have been better off with another ISP? They all rely on BTOpenreach so I'm not so sure.

They (almost) all rely on Openreach / BT Wholesale for backhaul, but that's a small part of the total business of being an ISP, they aren't all white label / resellers. Their own servers, their external links, their connections to BT20CN and BT21CN are all under the ISPs control,

A different ISP might have staff that will take ownership of a problem, that won't read from a script but are in fact experienced in IP and networking, that will correctly book appointments for Openreach to attend in a timely manner (I've never had to wait more than 48h, usually next day) etc etc.

Taking an "they're all the same, it's just the price that matters" approach misunderstands what's going on. It's not like buying mains gas at all, though many treat it as such.

I signed up for Vodafone fibre broadband at £20 a month for 18 months on 30th December 2017 with a go live date of 15th January 2018. It got to 12th January and I'd heard nothing so did a live chat to be advised my order had been cancelled accidentally but that it would be reinstated. By today I'd still heard nothing so did another live chat but the agent couldn't tell me anything and suggested I call Customer Service. I just asked for my order to be cancelled as Vodafone clearly don't want my business.

I signed up for Vodafone fibre broadband at £20 a month for 18 months on 30th December 2017 with a go live date of 15th January 2018. It got to 12th January and I'd heard nothing so did a live chat to be advised my order had been cancelled accidentally but that it would be reinstated. By today I'd still heard nothing so did another live chat but the agent couldn't tell me anything and suggested I call Customer Service. I just asked for my order to be cancelled as Vodafone clearly don't want my business.

Having spoken to Customer Services today, they advise me the reason the original order was cancelled was because they couldn't port my landline number. If only they had contacted me I would have explained this was not a problem as I don't use it anyway. The window to leave EE penalty free has now passed so there is nothing I can do but see out my EE contract.

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